Teaching at Munyove, a visit to Nkanka and painting at Isha

The second day at Munyove was full of joy and positive spirit. Olivia, the Headteacher, was pleased that we arrived on time, but was keen for the pupils to benefit from some teaching from the UK teachers. Again the aim was to focus on active learning. The enthusiasm from the team was met by an equal energy from the pupils. After a couple of hours of teaching, we witnessed and took part in 'practical works'. This involved groups of students and teachers passing bricks from one of the classrooms to outside. The orange from the brick gave us a rather special Rwandan fake tan.

The morning finished with two games of Handball. It was good to see both the boys and the girls competing with equal energy and physicality. The team decided to see what it was like to walk back to Kamembe. One of the teachers, Pascal, accompanied us otherwise we would have got lost in one of the 1,000 Rwandan hills.

Moreen and Francine bravely ascended motos this morning to take them to Isha school to finish the learning walls in the P6 and P5 classrooms and to their surprise enjoyed the journey immensely.  They finished all the paintings in the P6 classroom and had some help of a local boy in the P5 classroom. Like the previous days there was a small crowd of children gathering in the classroom to watch the abazungu so Moreen and Francine gave them some pencils, paper and paint. They created lovely pictures of cars and houses and were content just sitting there paging through the handbooks and watching each picture take shape, reading the labels out loud.

Harriet, Jane and Sue spent a long day at a disabled centre in Nkanka. We observed some excellent teaching to intellectually impaired children in small groups, learning how to draw horizontal and vertical lines. We observed the physiotherapist who was treating a number of children who had been brought to the centre from surrounding villages. The centre also leads training in sewing skills and carpentry skills. We met one young mother who had a son with cerebral palsy and four other children left at home. She walks to the centre twice a week with little Josef, a journey that takes her 4 hours each way to ensure he receives two half hour sessions of therapy every week. Her dedication is admirable and very humbling, and there are many more in her position. 

Following a lovely lunch from Signora Consuela, we had an in depth meeting about what help is needed at the centre. The meeting was interrupted by her dog, Billy, who was so excited he couldn't contain himself! Harriet, Jane and Sue then led a teacher training session in Pigeon Italian, French, English, Kinyarwandan and sign language! We showed the teachers how to use a variety of resources to maximum benefit. We modelled how to use a washing line and pegs, use storytelling as a cross curricula resource and Sue showed how to group letters of the alphabet to progress from one letter movement to another. 

Damoscine, the deaf signing teacher,  knew the story of Handa's Surprise and was able to understand how he could use it with his deaf children. Harriet and Jane then demonstrated how to use songs as a valuable learning resource by singing and signing in Kinyarwanda sign language 'I can sing a rainbow'.

This afternoon after returning from Munyove Dave, Steph, Beth, Ben, Maddie and Laurie all went back down to Baho Neza Mwana. We brought some nail polishes, kindly donated by Models Own, with the intention of painting the girls' nails - but the boys seemed far more keen to have their nails, both fingers and toes!, painted with red, hot pink and glitter!

We finished the pictures on the houses and Ben completed the Baho Neza sign at the entrance. A bit more painting and we will be finished. The children have really enjoyed painting with us and have shown real skills once they understood what we were doing.